All About Nothing With Ruth Cohn

Content note: This week's video does address the subject of suicide. If you or someone you know are in distress, in the US you can call 888, at any hour and there will be someone there to talk to. In other countries, locate the support services in your area.It is amazing how powerful it can be to simply have someone else there on the other end of the line.I remember once hearing an interview with a sportscaster who had a late night sports radio call-in show. A woman called him, not knowing who he was. She was in crisis and thought she had reached a crisis line. The man stayed on the phone with her, on the air, for two hours, until he was able to get someone there to help her. She lived many years after that.The interviewer asked the sportscaster how he knew what to do. He replied he did not really know, but when he was young he grandfather had died in a similar crisis. The experience was healing for him as well.In AA, "It is a permanent "solution" to a temporary problem."

This week I am delighted to present as our guest someone whom I have long held in the highest regard - everyone who has ever heard me teach before is already familiar with her, my long time friend, colleague, and esteemed teacher, world renowned neuroscientist Ruth Lanius.She will talk to us about her most recent research exploring sensory systems, so very relevant to neglect and every kind of trauma. She is also a prolific author of hundreds of papers and three great books. The work she is now studying is called SMART, Sensory Motor Affect Regulation Training. I am eager to try it myself!

Adrienne Rich famously declared that for a daughter, the loss of the mother, and for a mother, the loss of the daughter is the “essential female tragedy.” We would now widen the tightly gendered language to be far more inclusive and diverse. However, and whomever we are describing, the attachment researchers agree, that the primary other is the infant’s first love, and the loss or absence of that other is profoundly tragic and indeed traumatic.That is a theme running through Sebern Fisher’s new memoir, The Hidden Book of First Things, written from the standpoint of therapist, patient/client, mother, profoundly traumatized, dramatically healed and enthusiastic practitioner and recipient of powerfully effective neurofeedback.Sebern is our guest in this week’s episode, where we discuss neglect, which she prefers to call absence; the book; Neurofeedback, and many other subjects including recollections of our relationship which goes back to 2009.

Although this would ordinarily be my week for a blog, I must admit I am completely consumed with getting ready for Oxford which is sneaking up fast! So I decided I would talk to you instead. Thus this video. Serendipitously I received an email from a woman across the world, who is struggling with her present day relationships with family and requested that I record some videos on that subject. As it happens, I have a whole book in my head on the topic. So I made this video about that. A complicated subject, it is not all good news, but mostly, as far as I am concerned! In case you were wondering, I do enjoy getting you emails! And I read them all!

As champion of the invisible, I am always looking to raise awareness about individuals and groups who are unseen, ignored, excluded, misunderstood or worse. Where I live in San Francisco, USA, there is a relatively high level of diversity, but even here some minorities including sexual minorities continue to be marginalized.Since I have lived here, when food shopping at my favorite store down on Folsom Street, one weekend of the year, it is crowded with black leather and bare cheeks: the Folsom Street Fair, the annual celebration of Kink and BDSM (Bondage-Discipline Dominance and Submission.) It brings about 400,000 people to town, a not-trivial minority. Yet recently when I learned the term GSRD (Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Divergent) as a replacement for the not inclusive enough “alphabet soup” of LGBTQI+, it was brought to my attention that there is no letter in the soup representing kink. When first becoming a sex therapist in 1999 I began to learn about Kink, which is the larger umbrella term for BDSM, and it became clear to me how little I knew and understood about it, and how I had always viewed it through a trauma lens. I am still trying to understand it but continue to learn.At a recent conference in New York, where I spoke about neglect, a man came and introduced himself to me. He resembled the men I see on Folsom Street, except for the cheeks of course. I could see it in his face when he told me how much hearing about neglect spoke to him. He is Joshua Rodriguez. I am delighted to present Joshua as our guest for today.What Joshua speaks about may sound foreign to many of us, as some BDSM practices have to me. Some people’s idea of pleasure I continue to work hard to understand. We are not recommending anything here.“Don’t try this at home!”I continue to be devoted to the Six Principles of Sexual Health. Please join us in practicing inclusivity!The Six Principles of Sexual Health (courtesy of Doug Braun-Harvey):1. Consent 2. Non-exploitation 3. Honesty 4. Shared Values 5. Protection from sexually transmitted infections 6. Pleasure

This week's video, is kind of a "mash-up," an informal mix of news and update, a bit of apology for being irregular and unreliable with my posts, and a bit of a preview of coming attractions.Hoping all are managing the abounding "instabilities" around us all: heat, fires, war, an increasingly expensive daily life...Today's song fits with the "mash-up" theme. It doesn't directly relate to the content of the video, but I love the song, and the song's video!Hope you enjoy it too, and are getting some time for pleasure this summer! (or whatever season it is in your country!)

When I first studied Imago Relationship Therapy, now almost 30 years ago, its brilliant founder, Harville Hendrix, taught me many new ways of thinking about things. He steered us away from the idea of “compromise,” where it seemed no one would be satisfied in a lasting or resilient way. Rather, he taught us the concept of both partners “stretching” toward the other: moving gently beyond my own paradigm toward that of my partner, to resolve a disconnect or conflict. I have retained that concept over all these years.Stretching my body? Well, not so much! I always hated stretching, had no use for anything but cardio activity. I barely tolerated the brief stretching routine we had to do on group bike rides. I wanted nothing more than to move. I suppose I was chronically “running from a tiger.” Now with strange, admittedly limiting and painful issues in my neck and spine, I have had to learn the disavowed words “I can’t” about some simple things, like looking up at the bird my husband the semi-ornithologist would be pointing to. When there appeared to be no viable medical treatment for me, I first lapsed into despair and then grudgingly took the advice of dear friend and trusted counsel Janina Fisher, who referred me to her long-time yoga teacher. That was a long shot. If I hated stretching, I really had not use for yoga! But influenced by my relationship with Janina, I gave in and made the call. Then I met De. I discovered first that I hated yoga, but I loved her. And now almost a year after starting to work at least twice a week with De, I have come almost to like it. Sometimes I will be lying on the mat, and just well up with gratitude. Once again, with attachment anything is possible. In today’s video I am delighted to introduce you to De!

As I return from the flurry of conferences of the last three months, I am dizzy with all the change in myself. It takes a while to locate myself, and see an up to date version in the mirror. After so many years of being invisible and on the outside of everything (or at least that was my self-image) and consciously or unconsciously scared all the time, I feel jarringly different, at least much of the time. Other times I feel that same old way. When we do a lot of healing work, and grow, we change in all kinds of ways. And I remember learning somewhere long ago, that with the ongoing biology of cell division and re-generation, even seven years, our whole body has had a re-fresh.Kind of a refreshing thought, no?This process of updating files, requires time, integration, and humility, as some of the change that comes with aging, is less welcome. And because sometimes we lapse into old ways, at least for a minute, I also remember the words, there is no mirror like an old friend! Someone who has witnessed the changes and continued to update their files about us.On the note of changes. Admittedly I have always hated yoga, at least the idea of it. When I started having issues with my neck and spine, it was strongly recommended to me that I try yoga. When Janina fisher made a strong recommendation for this person, I could not ignore it. I contacted De West. For a long time I would emphatically say, "I hate yoga”, but I LOVE my teacher. Now I have even come to like it. When she told me about her upcoming free webinar, I had to share it with you.I'm glad to be home! Note: this podcast was recorded prior to the 37th Annual Boston International Trauma Conference, which took place May 27-30, 2026.

May means many things to many people. In California, USA, it is Cheese Month! Here in the US and some other countries, it brings Mother's Day. For those with histories of trauma and neglect, Mother's Day may be a day of bittersweet or even only bitter memories. My husband an I are not parents and both of our mother's are long passed, so it is a regular Sunday. But admittedly I cannot think of May without remembering the fateful day of May 25, 2020 when George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I think of him throughout the year. Recently I heard an announcement about a designated "Martyr's Day", scheduled for July to commemorate the many lives lost in the long and enduring fight for Civil Rights. I also learned that there was a Martyr's Day declared on January 30 to memorialize the date of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948. This year on May 8th we will observe Martyr's Day in our house. All those visible and invisible who made great personal sacrifices of one kind or another in the service of a better world.

Giving and receiving are delicate matters for survivors of neglect trauma. Many, if not most, are much more comfortable on the giving side of the equation - up to a point. Equation is an apt word here, because often, there is some sort of conscious or unconscious calculus of what the gift is “worth,” what it merits or warrants in return, or what it means. It is especially tricky when it comes to gifts to or from the therapist. There is a wide range of philosophical, theoretical and ethical standpoints on this, and a world of varying experiences. In this week’s video we dip in to that deep subject.